+1 to everything hannah said.
-hep
On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Hannah Grimm <dharlette at gmail.com> wrote:
> Things that would ensure I would never, *ever*, return to Noisebridge if
> I were to see them there:
>> "people getting fucked on a table by a dildo"
>> Praveen, this is not as simple as an issue of "inclusion" and a happy
> little collective. The truth of the matter is that when you include some
> people, you cause others to feel threatened & unsafe and thereby exclude
> them. People who are high at Noisebridge tend to cross boundaries, and one
> of those boundaries is often *the bodily autonomy of women at the space.
> *San Francisco is *full* of places where people can go to see folks
> screw in public, Noisebridge does not need to be one of them. If you want
> to display your bondage technology, go to Wicked Grounds! If you want to
> get high in public, go to Dolores Park! The place full of collectively
> owned powertools is not the correct venue for those activities.
>>> On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 7:17 AM, Al Sweigart <asweigart at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Your forgot "dropping acid at the space" and "condoning others to do the
>> same" on that list, Praveen.
>>>> While everyone else talks about problems in the space and practical ways
>> to solve these problems, you'd rather steer the conversation away from that
>> and towards the problems of the world. WE CAN SOLVE BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
>> Not using Noisebridge as a homeless shelter doesn't mean we must give up
>> fighting gentrification. In fact, Noisebridge could be even more effective
>> at solving those problems if it didn't drive people away with its
>> reputation as a filthy, rodent-infested space where you can buy meth and
>> the people who steal from you aren't banned.
>>>>>> On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 7:33 PM, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> The idea of noisebridge as an entity being constrained by leases and
>>> zoning laws is one that is frequently bandied about.
>>>>>> Indeed, in some amount of time, our lease will be up for re-negotiation,
>>> at which point we may have to make our own hard decisions of whether we can
>>> afford a rent increase, or be zoned for the next block of luxury housing in
>>> the mission.
>>>>>> To me, a community is much more powerful than mere contracts or money -
>>> in fact, it is the community itself that defines both of these things. To
>>> me, a community (and movements in general) is most powerful when everyone
>>> has an ability to participate. A lot of my off-time work is trying to deal
>>> with circumstances of people on the margins of participation: often times
>>> people who have lived their whole lives with a world that expects to
>>> apologize for they are. I'll write more on that later. We are all
>>> experiencing the first hand pains and momentous task of forming and growing
>>> a community.
>>>>>> We have options to take on both our lease and our zoning. It would
>>> require landlord buy-in, and it would require pulling connections inside
>>> the city: both of these are doable - as an example, many of you may know
>>> my housing collective has been working with the San Francisco Land Trust (
>>>http://www.sfclt.org/ ) to save our house from getting converted into a
>>> condoplex (and I highly encourage other people living in large collectives
>>> to look into this).
>>>>>> We in the tech community in the bay area are blessed with a lot of
>>> political power and influence: and this doesn't just mean twitter or
>>> google. Not only do we have observers from around the world, but we have
>>> observers and friends in city hall watching from a distance. As chaotic
>>> and disenfranchised we may think of ourselves, in reality we all wield a
>>> tremendous amount of influence as noisebridgers: we just don't know it yet
>>> (and this pattern of internalized political disenfranchisement is common
>>> not just amongst nerds but across many communities).
>>>>>> So what does all of this have to do with our tiny collective? Our
>>> kitchen issues? Our disorganized circuit equipment? In the span that I've
>>> been at noisebridge, I've seen and participated in: people adding new
>>> senses in their bodies, people writing the next generation machine
>>> recognition software, people making next generation low cost printable
>>> circuits, people making at home gene amplification technology, people grow
>>> mushrooms on a wall, people getting fucked on a table by a dildo and
>>> spanked by bondage clowns, having knock down intersectional fights of race
>>> and gender, being a technological staging ground for the occupy protests,
>>> having our hacker home double up as a shelter for years at a time and still
>>> function. We are creating and challenging the bounds of what can be done
>>> and is possible and not just technologically but socially.
>>>>>> In that, I submit that our pains have not to do with mismanagment, but
>>> that we need to grow into our next phase for an even larger and more
>>> dynamic community: I don't know what it's going to look like or what the
>>> outcome will be, but as everyone is shuffling about in this latest re-org,
>>> I think it's important to think bigger and more radical and more creative
>>> and more inclusive. As a hackerspace, we can go in directions no other
>>> space or collective on the planet is capable of at the moment. Keep it
>>> mind as we fight our battles, whatever side of drama you wind up on.
>>>>>> Love,
>>> Praveen
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>>>Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>>>https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>>Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>>https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss>>>>>> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss>>
--
hep
hepic photography || www.hepic.net
dis at gruntle.org || 415 867 9472
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20140405/3f8f67f3/attachment.html>